Marvel Comics #1000 Celebrates 80 Years of Marvel's Heroes

Marvel Comics has revealed ambitious plans for celebrating its 80th anniversary. The publisher will celebrate by releasing Marvel Comics #1000 in August 2019.

As revealed by The New York Times, this oversized anniversary issue is timed to hit on the 80th anniversary of the very first Marvel book ever published – 1939’s Marvel Comics #1. Check out artist Alex Ross’ cover below:

Marvel Comics #1000 cover by Alex Ross. (Image Credit: Marvel Comics)

This issue may well feature the single most extensive creative lineup of any Marvel book to date. Marvel Comics #1000 will comprise 80 single-page stories, each one geared toward a different year of Marvel’s existence and handled by a different creative team. If you’ve seen the mysterious teasers being tweeted out by various creators this week, now you know what they were teasing.

The creative lineup in Marvel Comics #1000 will feature a number of past and current Marvel creators, along with a few unexpected celebrity guest stars like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’s Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, Black Eyed Peas member Taboo and multi-talented former NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

According to Editor in Chief CB Cebulski, these celebrities were chosen because they’ve publicly acknowledged their love for Marvel’s characters in the past. “Our characters are mentioned in so many different ways and in so many different mediums and we always keep track,” Cebulski told the Times. “Now these distinguished individuals are able to contribute back to the comics they grew up on.”

For the full creative lineup, check out our slideshow of every creative team teaser released so far:

Immortal Hulk writer Al Ewing is taking a central role in shaping the story of Marvel Comics #1000, hence why his name appears no fewer than seven times in these teasers. “This is the kind of honor that doesn’t really come that often,” Ewing said.

The original Marvel Comics series went through several name changes before ultimately being canceled with 1957’s Marvel Tales #159. It’s conceivable that the series, if it had continued, would be reaching the issue #1000 mark right about now. After all, both Action Comics and Detective Comics celebrated their 1000th issues in the past year. However, in this case, Marvel’s editors seem less worried about the math than simply finding a clear way of marking the company’s anniversary. According to Executive Editor Tom Brevoort, “More than anything, it was a symbolic thing.”

Look for Marvel Comics #1000 to hit stores in August. For more on this week’s news, check out our Biggest Comic Book News and Reviews roundup.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.